Apollo's wandering eye on the art world. Look out for regular posts taking a rakish perspective on art and museum stories. Got a story for Rakewell? Email rakewell@apollomag.com. Follow @Rakewelltweets.

Sell me more, sell me more… Olivia Newton-John memorabilia heads to auction

The lots that she’s supplying… are electrifying!

5 Jul 2019
Footage of a man claiming to be Banksy from a news report in 2003; © ITN

A long-lost Banksy statement?

Is the man in a short TV report from 2003 the graffiti artist? You have 35 seconds to help you decide

5 Jul 2019

Number 9 dream – Boris and the art of buses

Boris Johnson makes model buses in his spare time, apparently

26 Jun 2019

Leonardo among the fashionistas

Call yourself a handbag designer, Jeff Koons? Leonardo beat you to it by 500 years

21 Jun 2019

Fatboy Slim, curator and critic

The DJ has curated an exhibition in Lisbon dedicated to the smiley logo – an image he has been collecting for decades

21 Jun 2019

Jean-Claude Juncker tries his hand at art criticism (again)

The president of the European Commission has expanded – cryptically, of course – on his description of Angela Merkel as an ‘endearing work of art’

15 Jun 2019

The Museum of London wants to watch over Trump Baby

The big blond blimp is on the wish list at the Museum of London, apparently

7 Jun 2019

Leonardo’s face, reimagined in chicken

The strangest Leonardo anniversary news to date (and it has nothing to do with the Salvator Mundi)

7 Jun 2019

The artful apparel of Lady Gaga

A gaggle of Gaga’s costumes have gone on display in Las Vegas – but her infamous meat dress isn’t quite was it once was

1 Jun 2019

The National Enquirer is now a museum (sort of)

The infamous tabloid is the focus of a new attraction in Tennessee – which is as chock-full of celeb gossip and conspiracy theories as you’d imagine

30 May 2019

Lots (and lots) of Leonard Cohen

First there was a major show in New York, now there’s a cache of letters at auction…

27 May 2019

Bernard-Henri Lévy and the cream of Europe

The French philosopher has marshalled artists to the cause of saving European unity – but on one point, at least, he shares common ground with Nigel Farage

23 May 2019

The art world goes to Legoland

Lego exhibitions are cropping up at museums across the UK – and the bricks are becoming the medium of choice for some artists

19 May 2019

Salvador Dalí – back from the dead (again)

Fancy a selfie with Salvador Dalí? An AI-generated version of the artist will be happy to oblige…

19 May 2019

Camping it up, art history-style

The celebs cooked up some outrageous costumes for the Met Gala – and as ever, it seems that a few of them have been studying their art history

8 May 2019

Warsaw goes bananas!

Banana-eating protestors surrounded the National Museum in Warsaw last week, after a video showing a woman consuming the fruit was removed from display

5 May 2019
Ve*us and Cu*id.

The great Renaissance cover-up

Titian and Bronzino have incurred the wrath of a librarian at a Baptist college in Florida

4 May 2019

The creative confessions of Anthony Scaramucci

The former director of communications at the White House isn’t a fan of contemporary art. At least he’s honest about it!

28 Apr 2019

Rooting around in Richter’s rubbish

A man has been fined for stealing from Gerhard Richter’s recycling bin. Honest, officer, I was trying to clear the paper off the street!

28 Apr 2019

Dine like the artists – from Doug Aitken to Marina Abramović

From Doug Aitken’s cheese fondue to Marina Abramović’s ‘essence drink’, the recipes you need to eat like a blue-chip artist

18 Apr 2019

Bedding down at the Louvre – and other nights at the museum

The Louvre is going to allow one couple a chance to conk out at the gallery. Seems like cultural catnaps are all the rage…

12 Apr 2019
The body politic.

Commons indecency, perhaps – but was it art?

A fleshy protest made parliament more farcical than ever this week. Marina Abramović, you have competition…

3 Apr 2019

The best arty April Fools’ pranks of 2019

From the Salvator Mundi in the Oval Office to a sausage museum in Lincolnshire, the best art-related April Fools’ jokes of 2019

1 Apr 2019
Artist Cosimo Cavallaro building his wall of cheese.

That border wall, made out of cheese

The Make America Grate Again project isn’t the first time dairy has been used as an artistic medium

29 Mar 2019